So, the NFC West effectively decided, their playoff chances all but extinguished, the Seahawks entertain the league-best 9-1 Arizona Cardinals at Century Link today. And, season records notwithstanding, the matchups are not encouraging....for the Cardinals.

I told a friend at church this past Sunday that the Champs would either lose to the Cards and Niners or we would beat them both. By this Sunday evening we could be a game up on San Fran and a game back of Arizona with the proverbial wind at our backs. And with no true dominant team in the NFC this year, momentum at the right time may be all it takes to get back to the promised land once again.

What a difference a week can make, much less two. Going into the Kansas City game, the last seven games of the season looked like a murderers' row in which the Champs would be doing well to win three games at most, with the not inconceivable possibility of losing six in a row, and maybe even a seven game skid to close the season with a losing record. 9-7 looked like the best outcome, and that mediocre a record would certainly not get them back to the playoffs.

Now? We're a game up on San Fran and a game and a half back of Arizona with the proverbial wind at our backs, and who knows what can happen in an NFC with, as I said a few days ago, no truly dominant team? Much has been written the last few days about the team meeting after the Chiefs loss where the 'hawks came back together, re-cemented the "We're all we got/We're all we need!" bond that was at the core of their championship run a year ago. And now, almost suddenly, the Champs have that same swagger back, as even the humble, unassuming quarterback Russell Wilson put it earlier this week.

Especially on (#1) defense. Just ask the 49ers, suffocated to a humiliating 164 total yards, 43 on the ground. Ask running back Frank Gore, stuffed for 28 yards on 10 carries. Ask quarterback Colin Kaepernick, who only got into triple-figures in passing yardage late in fourth-quarter garbage time and threw two more picks to All-Pro cornerback Richard Sherman. Ask Coach Jim Harbaugh, who looked uncharacteristically shell-shocked in his post-game presser. It was that comprehensive an ass-kicking.

The 19-3 final score didn't reflect it because, as usual, Seattle's offense can move the ball between the twenties but invariably bogs down in the red zone. Kicker Steven Hauschka kicked eight field goals in five days. No big deal against two bottom-half NFL offenses, but it probably won't cut it at Philadelphia next week against the Eagles' #4-ranked offense.

But that's for next week. Today I'm going to flip back and forth between Patriots-Packers and Cardinals-Falcons, root for the Pats and (other) Red-birds, and enjoy the show.

[Straight up picks indicated by asterisk (*); picks against the spread in parentheses (x).]

Internet Cyber-hacking has reached into Hollywood's pockets once again. Movies from Sony Pictures has been downloaded, and sent into the file-sharing world, including four unreleased films. The early exposure and downloading of the movies is a crime, and Sony is working with law enforcement closely regarding this case of piracy.

The group that performed the hacking calls themselves "Guardians of Peace," leaving a message on Sony's corporate computers with an image of a skeleton, and the words, "Hacked by #GOP."

I wonder how many people read about this and thought it meant the Republicans had done it?

The message also threatened to spill "secrets and top secrets" that Sony harbors, such as the investigation Sony finds themselves under regarding a connection between Sony's comedic film, "The Interview," and North Korea.

The hack-attack follows one against last July when Lionsgate was hacked, and their movie, "Expendables 3," wound up online three weeks before it was released in theaters.

The race/ethnicity/gender/group identity and the excuse define the action, not the action that defines the race/ethnicity/gender/group identity - depending on the race/ethnicity/gender/group identity:

BURNETT: Obviously, burn this expletive down, burn this expletive down. Look, he was in a lot of pain, he was in the moment, but do you think that served as a call to violence?

BROOKS: No, I don’t think that that was a call for violence or it caused violence. The fact of the matter is, a single act of violence set this tragic set of consequences into motion. That being the shooting of Michael Brown by Officer Darren Wilson. That’s what, in fact, caused all of this. And one of the ways that we can respond to this tragedy is to focus anger and turn anger into action and reform the criminal justice system. We can do no less.

BURNETT: All right.

Ex-Officer Darren Wilson "murdered" "unarmed incredible hulk" Michael Brown, even though he didn't, because Wilson is white and Brown was black. Michael Brown's stepfather demanded that Ferguson be "burned down" but that was not an incitement to violence and arson because Michael Brown's stepfather is black and "in pain" and has a right to "burn that bitch down," and besides, only white crackers "incite violence".

So why didn't white Missouri Democrat Governor Jay Nixon send in the National Guard he called up the week before to restore order? Is not violence sometimes needed to quell violence? Because mulatto Democrat Dictator Barack Obama ordered him not to, and to let the insurrection roar out of control. Anything less than full, instant, bootlicking obedience from Governor Nixon would have been "inciting violence" on his part.

That, and the propaganda optics are apparently more valuable to The One at this point than cutting straight to martial law.

Saturday, November 29, 2014

I remember when the first movie came out in 1977. I was near the end of my elementary school education, and my best friend's dad owned the local walk-in theater. I must've seen "A New Hope" twenty times in that old theater. In the following years my room was decorated with a mirror portraying an image of C3PO and R2D2, a Star Wars bedspread, and a Story of Star Wars LP record.

I love all six movies, though I remain mostly loyal to episodes 4, 5, and 6. When VHS was first available, I got the movies. I have DVDs of them, collector coins, posters, comics, and the books. I am a Star Wars fan, so when I heard there was going to be a Star Wars Episode VII, despite the fact that Disney would have a hold of the reins, I was pretty excited. Would Disney do the franchise justice? Or screw it up?

Now, a little more than a year before the film is supposed to come to theaters, the first teaser trailer for Star Wars VII, The Force Awakens, has emerged, and there were some interesting things I noticed as I watched it.

"There has been an awakening. Have you felt it?" The sound of the voice that begins the trailer comes across a little ominous. The awakening, I fear (we are meant to feel) is in the dark side of the force.

The opening shot looks like it is Tatooine, Luke Skywalker's home planet, which is interesting since the trailers for the past movies usually began with a scene of a starship, or droid. Then, after it looks like you have nothing more than a wasteland of sand, a face pops up into the picture.

After watching the Star Wars series only use Lando Calrissian as the only black character in the first three films, first appearing in Empire Strikes Back, and changing his ways to be a part of the rebellion in Return of the Jedi, and in the next three films Samuel L. Jackson as a Jedi Knight, when the first face you see in the new trailer is a black man in a Stormtrooper uniform without the helmet, it was, I don't know, unexpected. I am not sure which to be surprised most about; the fact that the Star Wars film opened with the face of a black man when black actors have been almost non-existent in the franchise, or that the film opens with a Stormtrooper on Tatooine without the benefit of his helmet, or the rest of his battalion. The actor is John Boyega, and the rumor is he is a trooper that abandoned his post. Does he join the good guys? Or is he a good guy wearing a Stormtrooper uniform like Luke and Han did when traipsing through the corridors in search of Leia on the Death Star?

Then a frantic droid appears. But, the robot looks like it is rolling along on a soccer ball. Interesting. New technology in a new world? Like the Stormtrooper on the desert planet of Tatooine, it looked like it was trying to get away from something.

Then, we get to see the missing squadron of Stormtroopers, getting ready to exit a ramp to. . . we don't know. Doesn't seem like the uniforms changed much. Didn't the last of the Stormtroopers get disbanded at the end of Episode 6, Return of the Jedi?

The next seen shows Daisy Ridley, playing the daughter of Han Solo and Leia, on an interesting looking landspeeder. Well, it is kind of a vertical looking vehicle. Is it a landspeeder version of a motorcycle? Speederbike? She's giving us a Leia look with a Han Solo attitude - yet Skywalkerish (hence, the Leia look). She gives you a feeling she pulls no punches and doesn't mess around. Does she leap without looking too? That would definitely make her Han Solo's daughter, as well.

The X-Wings look good, but the logo for the rebel alliance has not changed. Did they adopt the logo for the new republic? Or maybe the new republic didn't take like it should have. Or are the pilots of the X-Wings wearing decades-old helmets? The skimming the water scene does look cool, though, doesn't it? What planet is that?

Then, we get the defining scene that reminds us that the Sith never disappeared. Is the dark figure a new Sith Lord? In the snow, around blackened, dead looking trees, an ominous voice emerges, more ominous than the voice at the opening. "The Dark Side. And the Light." And then we get to see the new lightsaber, but it is more like a light-sword, with three points. And the handle is long, able to be grasped by two hands, like Darth Vader's.

And then the music we love, the Star Wars music we know, begins to play as the Millennium Falcon bursts on the scene. Woo hoo!!! Is Han Solo behind the stick? It looks like the Falcon is on Tatooine, too. Is that where the center of the story, and the trouble, is?

Then, in come the TIE Fighters. Again, we are decades into the future, and yet the same old ships are being used? Where's the new models? Even KIA makes their cars look a little different, and better, with each passing year.

The film finished shooting earlier this month, but the production is not even close to completion. Surely, there is still a lot of music to be recorded, sounds to be integrated into the film, and special effects to add.

So what did we learn? Not much. But, fans like me are surely excited, and wanting a little more.

That's the point of the trailer. Goal achieved. Star Wars fans the world over are grinning in delight. Star Wars VII is on its way.

Officer King B. Woodard recorded a rant/message against racism and looting in Ferguson from inside his patrol car and the video has gone viral on Facebook. The message has been watched more than 600,000 times on Facebook so far.

Maybe we're seeing a burgeoning race war from coast to coast that was sparked in Ferguson, Missouri. Or maybe we're seeing the last gasp of the Black Klan, "black nationalism," "black liberation theology," and the death grip of the Democrat Party and its insidious, twentieth/twenty-first century form of welfare slavery on "black America," brought to us by the relentlessly divisive, insufferable racism and all-around leftwing extremism of "The First Black President".

I call it "the African-American Spring". And by the looks of things, it is continuing to blossom.

Did you ever think when Barack came by That human liberty was about to die? They raid our shops and tap our phonesAnd pack our courts with their Marxist clones.

They tell us lies and call us namesWhile our constitution goes up in flames.We cry and pray and organizeBut nothing breaks through their wall of lies.

We are racists and fascists and filthy swine.At least, according to their party line.Check out the movies and TV stations.Ours is the worst of all possible nations.

They teach it in high school and then in college.American greed is common knowledge.Whatever we have, we stole it somewhere.Our bloodstained souls are beyond repair.

Barack Obama agrees completely.His Marxist views, once held so discreetly,Inform all his actions , from pen to phone.As he creates legislation all on his own.

He has spent all our money; we're drowning in debt.When you vote for a fascist, that's just what you get.He hates this whole country and all that is in it.If we must fight a new war, he won't let us win it.

We have two more years to put up with this traitor.Every day that goes by, our danger grows greater.He won't want to leave when his term has expired.Nor will the counterfeit "Czars" he has hired.

The last thing we want is to provide an excuseFor Obama to engage in further abuse.Let him go quickly, this petulant child. We'll celebrate richly; our joy will run wild.

....who supposedly don't - or aren't supposed to have standing to - pay taxes. Or, in other words, welfare through the tax code.

Let me remind all our readers where I come from on the subject of tax cuts: I don't believe in gimmicks, I don't believe in loopholes, and most especially I do not believe in targeting. That's why the term "middle class tax cut" makes my teeth grind. It offends my sense of justice, which grows out of the constitutional concept of equality before the law. If you didn't know or realize that "progressive taxation" was a Marxist concept, the unkillable Donk chimera of their never-ending "crusade to help the middle class" should be a powerful clue. It even drives me nuts when Wayne Alan Root fixates upon it. You want to "help the middle class"? Stop punishing the "rich" - aka the job-creators (not "gentry liberals") - with "progressive taxation," and leave them greater resources (as well as incentivizing the "de-sheltering" of still more capital) with which to grow their enterprises, grow the economy, and generate the blizzard of "good jobs at good wages" that always result as a byproduct of a liberated capitalist economy.

Yes, gentlebeings, I am a flat tax fan, until such time as a miracle on par with Genesis Chapter 1 takes place, we can repeal the Sixteenth Amendment, and get back to the indirect taxation the Constitution originally ordained. Bottom line: if We, The People, are going to be directly taxed by the federal government, everybody - and I do mean everybody - should pay the same singular rate. No tax tables, no federal withholding, no nothing. Declare your income, multiply it by that singular rate, write your check to Uncle Sam, and you're done.

Yeah, it would put us CPAs out of at least part of our business, but I've been effectively blackballed from the accounting profession anyway, so what would I have to lose by standing on constitutionalist principle?

But this story is about the "middle class tax cut" that Republicans and Democrats in Congress, as well as the Obama White House, were supposedly (and VERY quietly) negotiating over this past summer. In other words, one of the hundreds of pro-growth, pro-jobs bills the GOP House has churned out over the past four years that have died of neglect and dust-bunny poisoning on Harry (G)Reid's desk while he was out squeakily bashing Republicans as "waging war on the middle class". Or, in (G)Reidish, "Koch Brothers! BRAAWWWK!"

Interviews with the key players showed that the two tax-writing panels in the Senate and House had for weeks been making solid progress toward a final tax package that looked like it would include the breaks for low- and middle-income people sought by the president.

Or, in other words, not a "tax cut," middle class or otherwise, but more welfare via the tax code.

But the deal fell apart just as it seemed to be coming together.

The immigration executive order soured the GOP on the tax cuts for the working poor and middle class sought by Democrats. Republicans worried [illegal aliens] targeted by the order would begin claiming the credits in droves. They found a friend in Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, who reluctantly agreed to drop his party’s demands to extend expiring parts of the earned income tax credit and its companion, the child tax credit.

Evidently because Harry (G)Reid valued anti-tax cut (or "cut") purity more than O valued pandering to his stereotype of the border erasure that all Hispanics are supposed to fervently desire.

Republicans were uncharacteristically perceptive in recognizing that policy tiger trap and averting it. Indeed, it is precisely the sort of bumbling, fumbling, stumbling debacle into which they so often face-plant themselves. But then it was also a poison pill so perpetrated as to enable Democrats to claim, "We tried to give the middle class tax relief, but those plutocratic fat-cat Republicans stood in the way." How blessed for the GOP, and the country, that Red Barry had by that time so thoroughly buried his party in public animosity, distrust, and ill-will - instinctively, even if most Americans couldn't explain the numerous, ample reasons for it - that the Dems' usual tiresome, petty propaganda "gotcha" games were completely drowned out.

For my part, I am baffled by at what point, and by what means, illegal aliens joined the "middle class". Unless the definitional bar of that term has been so subterraneanly lowered that even I, bereft of gainful employment or income as I have been for 451 of the past 457 days, with no end in sight, am now being classified as "rich". Because if that's the case, I wish somebody would inform my bank account, as it continues to not receive that particular memo.

While I synopsize and quote from the following story, I want you to see if you can spot the one thing that is not present anywhere within it.

Kelvin Cochran is a Fire Department Rescue Chief in Atlanta, Georgia. Kelvin Cochran is also an evangelical Christian and author of the book Who Told You You Were Naked?,a tome about legitimate and illegitimate sexuality from a biblical perspective.

I think you can all see where this is headed:

Cochran, a Baptist deacon, says to be “naked” in the Biblical sense means to suffer “condemnation and deprivation.” But Christians “have been clothed with Christ! Redeemed men who carry the curse of condemnation and deprivation cannot fulfill their purpose as husbands, fathers, community and business leaders — world changers!”

You can tell that Mr. Cochran is a fireman and not a professional wordsmith. And if you couldn't from his muddled verbiage, the overabundance of exclamation points would be a more conspicuous clue.

Certain behaviors, he warned, lead to a life that inherently contradicts God’s blessings.

“Sexual acts pursued for purposes other than procreation and marital pleasure in holy matrimony is the sex life of a naked man.

Credit where credit is due: Good use of irony in that line. Nicely done, Mr. Cochran.

When men are unrestrained in their quest for sex outside of God’s purpose they will never be fulfilled,” Cochran wrote. “Naked men refuse to give in, so they pursue sexual fulfillment through multiple partners, with the opposite sex, same sex and sex outside of marriage and many other vile, vulgar and inappropriate ways which defile their body-temple and dishonor God. This is the kind of sex that leaves a man continually empty–the sex life of a naked man.”

Indeed.

And here comes the, er, counter-"money shot":

Homosexual [extreme]ists objected to that passage, as well as a brief line that defines “uncleanness” as “whatever is opposite of purity; including sodomy, homosexuality, lesbianism, pederasty, bestiality, and, all other forms of sexual perversion.”

Understand, they were not offended by these things, they were defending them as being, in effect, "pure".

On the other hand, that at least suggests that they read his book - probably got lured in by the word "naked" being in the title - so maybe some heart seeds were planted somewhere that the Holy Spirit can cultivate.

He said his “greatest desire is to fulfill the purpose of God for his life” in part through his dedication to the fire department, “to cultivate its culture to the glory of God.”

The city’s Democratic leadership and homosexual lobbyists were outraged.

Of course, they were. So they suspended Chief Cochran and shipped him off to a re-education camp "sensitivity training". After which he'll have to be a practicing sodomist, homosexual, lesbian, pederast, animal-humper, and vegesexual if he expects to keep his job, out of which he'd better keep God permanently.

And when they had summoned them, they commanded them not to speak or teach at all in the name of Jesus. But Peter and John answered and said to them, “Whether it is right in the sight of God to give heed to you rather than to God, you be the judge;for we cannot stop speaking about what we have seen and heard.”

Have you noticed what is missing from this story? Answer: Any allegation of discrimination or abuse on the part of Chief Cochran on the basis of sexual orientation (or anything else). Nowhere, by nobody, is it alleged that Kelvin Cochran mistreated or, well, "screwed" over anybody on the grounds of retrograde sexuality. No discrimination, no "unequal treatment," no "favorites-playing," no "deck-stacking," no misconduct within or outside of his vocational agency.

His lone "offense," it appears, is that he wrote a Christian-oriented book about sexuality and remained faithful to God's Word from front cover to back cover. One that the account also doesn't indicate that he ever forced or coerced anybody to read. And for that he has been vilified, excoriated, eviscerated, and punished with the public humiliation of job suspension and the petty tyrannical imposition of compulsory anti-Christian indoctrination.

If only he'd gone out and burned down minority-owned Atlanta businesses in Ferguson-solidarity instead of writing biblical commentaries in his free time. If there's one thing Democrat leaders and homosexual hobbyists "lobbyists" cannot abide, it's "uppitiness".

Students at Griffith Elementary already missed extra classes this week. Now they may see boarded windows and missing electronics when the doors open at 8:30a.m. Monday.
Ware said it’s the work of four men in two cars. He said, “They had guns on ‘em and all that and I approached and came out of my driveway, I noticed they were loading stuff up.”

Ferguson Police report stolen electronics, some of which they’ve already recovered. Ware says Ferguson officers and National Guardsmen responded quickly after he drove to a command station to report what he witnessed.

Here's what I wonder, folks: Were there ever any actual residents of Ferguson, Missouri among the "protestors"? Going all the way back to three months ago when this irrational, incoherent furor began? Because whatever your take on what REALLY happened between Officer Wilson and "unarmed [drug-fueled, NFL nose-tackle-sized] teenager" Michael Brown on that fateful August afternoon, just exactly how does it advance the cause of "justice" to loot poor, 93%-African-American elementary schools? Sheesh, I'm actually a little shocked that the "protestors" didn't burn Griffith Elementary to the ground while they were at it. Because that'd sure show "whitey," wouldn't it? "Pity us, we're demolishing our own community and irreparably harming our own people, and all "white America" is allowed to do is rebuild it for us, but don't you dare try to stop us from burning ourselves down in the first place, because that's 'racist white oppression'".

Och, my ears are starting to bleed again. So let's move on to something much more understandable: Ferguson (-sympathizing) "protestors" attacking schoolchildren directly:

Is it “protesting the man” when you attack little kids and make them cry?

It seems that these ignoramus Ferguson protesters think that little kids are a legitimate target when they accosted a Christmas tree lighting ceremony making all the little kids cry. The ceremony was held in Seattle, Washington, on Friday.

Seattle’s mayor, who had been supportive of the protesters, was all over the place apologizing for the idiots who disrupted the tree ceremony.

No, they are not "ignoramuses"; they're racist animals. They're also moral supremacists. And most of all, they are bullies, believing that their ubiquitous self-righteousness entitles them to do whatever they want, whenever they want, to whomever they want, for any reason they, in their self-imagined wisdom, may choose. Which apparently includes disrupting a Christmas tree lighting ceremony and terrorizing little kids on behalf of an incident that took place over two thousand miles away. Something even the ignoramus Mayor of Seattle had the political acumen to realize was a PR disaster in the making for him.

But then, this was Seattle, so there were likely a greater proportion of the children who were white, which means "they had it coming". Because after all, as we're all forced to accept, white Seattle elementary school kids "murdered" Michael Brown, too.

I dunno; this seems like more of a blessing than a curse, if you ask me.

One thing we can all agree on is that it is very, very funny:

Immigrants who are eligible for ObamaCare are running into problems when they try to sign up for health coverage on HealthCare.gov because of safeguards that were put in place to weed out illegal immigrants, the Wall Street Journal reported.

People born outside of the United States who are trying to sign up on healthcare.gov are having difficulty proving they are their identities and submitting documents that demonstrate they are in the country legally.

As a result, some are being redirected to Medicaid even though they don't qualify, while others struggle to navigate an online system with a range of glitches, including a failure to verify people without an extensive credit history. Verification is an essential step in creating an account.

"A lot of advocates are frustrated," Angel Padilla, health policy analyst at the National Immigration Law Center, told the Journal.

Well, okay, but really, who cares about legal immigrants, right? The Obama Regime isn't interested in them; they've already got legal immigrants in their voter fraud bank, as far as they're concerned. It's illegals they're after, illegals the only immigrants they care about - and then only until they're here and amnestized, after which they'll be tossed on the same pile with their legal counterparts, taken for granted and expected to robotically vote Democrat every election from here to eternity.

And if there are still obsolete protocols in healthcare.gov's code excluding illegals, all The One has to do is amend his amnesty decree to give them both full access and preferential treatment above and beyond mere citizens, yes? After all, King Hussein's pen and his phone can do anything, correct?

Well, almost anything, anyway. Even the demigod can't fix healthcare.gov and make it work like software that wasn't designed for a punch-card-driven UNIVAC, complete with vacuum tubes. And now it's pissing off the extremists in the very ethnic demographic to which he is most fervently attempting to basely and unlawfully pander. Almost like Proverbs 16:18 come to life and face-painting Joker makeup on O in his sleep.

Maybe the past summer's illegal influx will start reversing itself once they get the same snootful of the reality of living under Obamunist rule that We, The People, have endured for the past six years. At least that way it would actually motivate The One to finally build a border fence, the better to keep them, and us, in.

After a regular dose of earthquakes, and a deadly eruption of Mount Ontake that killed 50 people last September, Mount Aso has erupted in Japan. The volcano is located in southern Japan and this is the first eruption of one of the largest volcanoes in the world in 22 years. The flowing magma, smoke, and plumes of ash caused flight cancellations, and warnings against anyone approaching the mountain. There is no expectation the eruption will worsen, according to officials.

Good guys with guns stop bad guys with guns. That is the reality, and that is why increasing gun control laws against law abiding citizens are actually more dangerous to our society, and will ultimately encourage more instances of violent crime and home invasions. . . as such policies did statistically in Great Britain and Australia after their hard left politicians confiscated everyone's guns.

A good example of a good guy not expecting to take out a bad guy, but was in the right place at the right time and did so as necessary, occurred Friday, the day after Thanksgiving, when a gunman opened fire in downtown Austin, Texas. Granted, the person that put an end to the gunman's activities is a veteran Austin police officer at the police station, putting away horses, holding the horses with one hand, and firing at the gunman with the other, but I venture to speculate that many law-abiding citizens, with a firearm on their person, would have been willing to do the same thing.

The quick action by the police officer putting away the horses limited the suspect's rampage to ten minutes. The shooter targeted government buildings in the Texas capital, Mexican Consulate, the Federal courthouse and Austin Police Headquarters, according to reports.

This is where the liberal press goes off on a tangent. According to NBC News, considering the government targets the gunman fired more than 100 rounds towards, and the fact the gunman tried to torch the Mexican Consulate with a portable Bar-B-Que lighting device, the person with a known criminal history is being called an "anti-government" individual with a "political agenda." NBC then dragged the immigration issue into the story. I'm surprised they didn't then blame the citizens of Murrieta, California, who turned away buses full of diseased illegal aliens last July, for bringing the immigration issue to prominence, and therefore, for the shooting.

The shooter was prepared, wearing full gear, what seemed like a bullet-proof vest and a helmet with a clear visor over his face. In the end, regardless of his gear, he wound up dying from his gunshot wounds.

As for the "anti-government" mention by NBC, "anti-government" is their code word for "rightwingers that believe in limiting the powers of the federal government." As I tell people, "I am not anti-government, I am pro-constitutional government." A part of that belief is rooted in the fact that the federal government has no constitutional authority to infringe on our gun rights in any way. Local government has that authority, but our local government is local to us, and more under our control. The Second Amendment was written largely to protect the people from a tyrannical federal government. Tyranny fears an armed populace.

As for the gun control crowd, the Left's agenda is not about your safety, it is about increasing their control over the populace though government dictates, and disarming those that may consider standing against them. Again, tyranny fears an armed populace.

Friday, November 28, 2014

“I would like to thank Judge Barbara Jones, the NFL Players Association, my attorneys, agents, advisors, family, friends and fans — but most importantly, my wife Janay,” Rice said in a statement released by the NFLPA on Friday. “I made an inexcusable mistake and accept full responsibility for my actions.

“I am thankful that there was a proper appeals process in place to address this issue. I will continue working hard to improve myself and be the best husband, father and friend, while giving back to my community and helping others to learn from my mistakes.”

Former U.S. District Judge Barbara S. Jones, who heard Rice’s appeal earlier this month, concluded in her decision, which was obtained by ESPN, that Rice did not lie to or mislead NFL commissioner Roger Goodell.

“In this arbitration, the NFL argues that Commissioner Goodell was misled when he disciplined Rice the first time. Because, after careful consideration of all of the evidence, I am not persuaded that Rice lied to, or misled, the NFL at his June interview, I find that the indefinite suspension was an abuse of discretion and must be vacated,” Jones’ decision stated.

“I find that the NFLPA carried its burden of showing that Rice did not mislead the Commissioner at the June 16th meeting, and therefore, that the imposition of a second suspension based on the same incident and the same known facts about the incident, was arbitrary,” Jones also wrote.

“The Commissioner needed to be fair and consistent in his imposition of discipline.

The NFL's error in this incident was not under-reaction, but over-reaction. Once the domestic violence charges were filed against Ray Rice, the Ravens suspended him for two games, pending the outcome of the investigation. What they should have done is refrained from taking any premature action until the full extent of what happened was determined, as the San Francisco 49ers are doing with similarly-accused Ray McDonald. That way, once the video above emerged, the course of action would have been obvious, and the Ravens and the league wouldn't have looked craven and reactionary in casting Rice to the outer darkness.

Judge Jones could have saved herself some time, effort, and keystrokes, and just quoted me, huh?

When the second video came out from inside that Atlantic City hotel elevator showing the one-punch knockout of Janay Rice, the NFL, cowed by the Left's attacks coming from seemingly every direction, panicked and officially ex-communicated Ray Rice. But in so doing, they were leaving themselves open to the possibility that this knee-jerk overreaction could conceivably come back to bite them in the ass. And now it has. Henceforth, a "wife-beater" will be eligible to play once again in the National Football League. And because Mr. Rice is a quality NFL running back, and NFL teams want to win, you can count on some club offering him a contract - probably not until next season, given how late in the year it is and because of the time needed for the league's latest embarrassment to, if not blow over, than at least fade a "smidgeon". And out the window, consequently, will go the past three months of those incessant, annoying, pile-driver-like "NO MORE!" PSAs and every other frantic PR gambit the NFL has taken to try and obsequiously ingratiate itself with the feminazis who will never stop attacking professional football under any circumstances.

Nope, today really wasn't Roger Goodell's day. Now all he's got to do is wait for news that the Ferguson "protestors" have burned down the Edward Jones Dome, and his cornucopia of calamity will be complete.

Darren Wilson is currently in discussions with the Ferguson, Missouri, police department on the terms and conditions of his departure, attorney Neil Bruntrager said this week.

“There’s no way in the world he can go back to being a police officer,” the lawyer said.

“It’s not a question of if, it’s a question of when,” Bruntrager said of Wilson’s departure

…”The first day he would be back on the street something terrible would happen to him or to someone that would be working with him,” he told CNN.

“The last thing he wants is to put other police officers at risk,” the attorney added.

Mr. Bruntrager added that this doesn't specifically apply to the Ferguson Police Department, but that Mr. Wilson will never be able to serve in law enforcement anywhere ever again after the notoriety the Michael Brown incident has brought down upon him. At the age of twenty-eight, his career is over.

In a sense, I can relate to having one's career destroyed by vicious enemies through no fault of one's own. My advantage is that at least I had my career for twenty-six years and was able to sock a lot of my earnings away in order to tide me over during the interim and transition to what I'm hoping will be a full-fledged successor career here and in radio. Mr. Wilson had the bulk of his career in front of him. Past tense. What will he do now? Who knows? As I've said all week, not only will the young man never be a cop again, I don't see how he can ever earn a living of any kind, because I don't see how he can ever come out of hiding for fear of loss of life and limb for himself and his family.

The Ferguson grand jury courageously refused to bow to the racist lynch mob and made the right decision based upon the actual evidence and did not indict Officer Wilson. Pending Eric "The Red" Holder's spotty double jeopardy federal "civil rights" gambit, he will be cleared of any legal threats and ramifications. But unable to earn a living and condemned to spend the rest of his life looking over his shoulder, Darren Wilson's life has been effectively ruined even without being railroaded through racist kangaroo courts. But that will never been enough for those who believe that "black lives matter" - especially those who commit de facto suicide by physically attacking an armed cop - and white lives are expendable - in the name of "social justice," of course.

That morning you are all invited to join the Constitution Association Murrieta Festival of Trees decorating party. The theme of our tree is Celebration of America, at the Town Square Park in Murrieta. Bring your patriotic ornaments, and join us as we decorate a tree that will be donated to a local family. We begin decorating at 10:00 am.

At 2:25 pm, a second guest will join the program, Washington DC insider, Jerome Corsi, to discuss his new book, Who Really Killed Kennedy? Corsi is a return guest, and best known for his book "Obamanation" when Barack Obama first emerged into prominence.

Barack Obama unlawfully dismantles immigration law that he finds incompatible with his own larger agenda; Obama's plays to his amnesty crowd;
Hoping for surrender on amnesty, Representative Luis Gutierrez
demagogues and bullies - or, IOW, the crowd to which Obama is playing;
Behold, the Democrat civil war - but is it real? Probably not; and is
Crazy Nancy Pelosi's iron grip on House Democrats finally weakening?

Is it Black Friday in Ferguson, or is every day there black Friday? We ponder these and other questions on Open Thighs Friday at 6PM Eastern/3PM Pacific.

Economics are pretty simple. Supply and demand are the primary forces behind prices, and economic growth. Other factors, however, can also play into the game, such as the cost of doing business. In the world of oil, prices have been dropping because supply has been going up with the United States drilling domestically. The oil boom in North Dakota has transformed the State into a booming site of activity. Jobs are being filled quickly, and the need for more workers continues to increase. The oil boom has made North Dakota a very popular place to be. But, like the dot com bubble, the success of American shale oil may be its own undoing.

The United States has a lot of oil, and much of that oil is in shale deposits. Recoverable oil from America's oil shale deposits is three times greater than the proven oil reserves of Saudi Arabia. Extraction of oil shale, however, is much more complex than convention oil drilling, and much more expensive. Extraction strategies include "Fracking," a method that pumps water, sand, and a small amount of chemicals into the ground to fracture the rock and allow the oil to pour into the horizontal drill tube.

Critics claim that fracking causes earthquakes, and poisons water tables. Oil drillers claim that every precaution is taken to ensure the water is safe. As for flaming faucets, studies have shown that the phenomena appears in areas where there has been no fracking, as well.

The expense of recovering oil from oil shale deposits, being more expensive, means that if the price of oil goes down too low, the cost will exceed the price, and kill the industry. As American drilling increases the supply, prices have come down. We have all seen it at the pump. Middle Eastern oil producers are torn on the next move to make. Some wish to reduce production so as to drive prices back up and make the efforts of OPEC nations more profitable. However, keeping their production level where it is may keep prices low for a while, but the prices will come right back up after the low prices kill their competition in America who may not be able to afford to continue to compete because of the cost of extracting oil from shale.

More detainees are slowly and quietly being released from U.S. detention in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, the Wall Street Journal reports.

Five captives were released last week and more are set for December, although defense officials have been vague about numbers, the Journal said.

Just 143 detainees remain at the facility now, down from a high of close to 800 in the wake of the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

No surprise here. O wanted to do this all at once five years ago, but couldn't even get that past the then-Donk SuperCongress, and in the next cycle it was impolitic to do so during his re-election campaign. So he waited. Now that he'll never face the voters again and the Donk Senate is history, there's nothing preventing him from throwing open Gitmo's doors and letting the remaining jihadists run wild, bloodthirsty, and free. Beats me why he's doing it quietly. It's not as though the Bowe Berghdahl-Taliban Five trade did him any political damage.

The releases have also turned political. While Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel must approve transfers out, he apparently tangled with the White House over his pace, favoring a full investigation to ensure the captives would not be a risk to U.S. security once freed, Politico reported.

U.S. News & World Report cited Maddow Blog writer Steve Benen, who outlined the political chess going on behind Hagel's back before his resignation was announced earlier this week, noting that his attitude on Guantanamo and releasing detainees was a part of his departure.

The question is not why Barack Obama ever hired Chuck Hagel as is SecDef. The answer to that is obvious: He wanted the completion of his decimation of the U.S. military to have a Republican face. The question is why Chuck Hagel ever accepted Barack Obama's offer. Clearly the joke was on him.

December 6, 2014, 10:00 am: Constitution Association - Murrieta Festival of Trees decorating party. Constitution Association Tree: Celebration of America, at the Town Square Park in Murrieta. Bring your patriotic ornaments, and join us as we decorate a tree that will be donated to a local family.

This will certainly give the anti-Second Amendment nuts fresh ammunition, as well as the Left overall, to change the subject from their post-midterm election recriminations. The only thing that prevents it from being "Gabby Gifford II" - which took place closely following the Dems' 2010 midterm disaster - is that the only fatality was the gunman himself:

A gunman targeted three downtown public buildings — the Mexican consulate, federal courthouse and police headquarters — before police shot and killed him, according to local media reports. Police said the unidentified man was suspected of opening fire on buildings at around 2:30 a.m. local time [November 28th, 2014], KVUE-TV reports. The Austin American-Statesman reported that the Mexican consulate and federal courthouse were among the target locations, as well as the police building. Assistant Chief Raul Munguia told reporters that the suspected shooter, who was wearing a vest, was killed near his vehicle, which may have contained an improvised explosive device. The police bomb squad was on the scene.

The fact that this maniac targeted the Mexican consulate in Austin is a propaganda godsend to the Obama White House. You can count on The One using this incident to smear amnesty opponents - which is to say, (currently) three quarters of the American electorate - as "crazed, violent, racist, rightwing extremists" who must be "put down" for the public good. Or words to that effect. Along with the gun control angle, it's a propaganda blue plate special.

I'll leave it to you to speculate on whether GOP opposition to O's unlawful amnesty decree will diminish or crumble altogether going forward. My guess is it will rally the Donk base somewhat, but will have little effect on Republican determination, such as it is, given his infernal majesty's squandered credibility and grotesque ubiquity. But he'll give it his best demidivine shot.

If Democrat scandals mattered, if the media would actually cover them, this would certainly appear to be a "smoking gun". Hell, it would be an entire arsenal:

The IRS improperly turned over thousands of "confidential" tax documents to the White House for review, according to information obtained from a lawsuit filed against the U.S. Treasury Department's inspector general by the legal advocacy firm Cause of Action, exposing a pipeline of communication between the two, the Daily Caller reports.

Wait a minute. Do you mean to tell us that there is a proper mode for the IRS turning over thousands of confidential tax documents to the White House for "review"? Because I don't think there is one. And do I really have to ask, even rhetorically, what business the White House had "reviewing" "confidential" tax documents that obviously weren't all that "confidential"?

“[T]he Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration (TIGTA) informed Cause of Action that there exist nearly 2,500 potentially responsive documents relating to investigations of improper disclosures of confidential taxpayer information by the IRS to the White House,” Cause of Action noted, according to the Daily Caller.

Which means there are probably four or five or God knows how many times as many, and they're only admitting to 2,500. Although 2,500 is criminally appalling enough, and would be a huge deal if the White House was anybody's but Barack Obama's.

By the way, here's today's punchline:

The Justice Department has asked for a longer window under which to review the newly found documents before releasing them publicly, the Daily Caller said.

Well, of course they did. Although I have to ask: If the White House has already "reviewed" these "confidential" IRS documents, why does DOJ need to bother? Or are we talking about two different "modes" of "reviewing"?

For those of you in Malaga, Washington, THAT was a rhetorical question.

The Washington Examiner's Paul Bedard, in his "Secrets" column, called news of the leaked documents a "shocking revelation."

Only if you haven't been paying attention for the past two years, Paul.

I am surprised she is not dead. . . not because of her age, and not because of her health, but because the Obama regime pressured her to step down, and she refused to. . . and we know what happens to people who dare to stand against the Obama authoritarian administration.

Consider the death of Andrew Breitbart, or how quickly Hagel was shown the door after he dared to challenge the President's narrative regarding ISIS.

But, so far, she had her heart procedure, and she has been released from the hospital. So far, so good, for Ginsburg. She expects to be back on the bench by Monday, just as she did twice before after battling cancer. . . unless the hard left Obama goons get to her, first. They fear that if they lose the White House in 2016, and she dies during that administration, all of their cheating, lying, and preparing will be set back for a generation.

Ginsburg's response to the pressure was that this Senate, and the GOP controlled one taking over in January, won't confirm a replacement as liberal as her, so she is willing to hold out until the hard left democrats have control of both the Senate, and the White House, again. I just don't think she'll last that long, either because of her age, or the impatience of the progressives that pull the puppet strings. I think they want Hillary Clinton on the bench.

I would not be surprised if a blood clot suddenly went to Ginsburg's brain, and killed her. The source of the blood clot, of course, will never be definitively determined. The liberal left progressive power players have already shown they are good at convincing the uninformed of their sometimes downright ridiculous propaganda.

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